Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Not much to it, and not really news, but I just realized that a bunch of the old “Home Run Derby” programs, which were first aired in the 50s and 60s, and then re-aired in ESPN back in the 80s, are available in their entirety on YouTube.

This one sees the Braves’ sluggers go up against one another. It’s interesting to see Eddie’s smooth, left-handed uppercut, and its contrast to Hank’s lunging, shoulder-heavy right-handed slash.

Reader Comments and Retorts

Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

The hokey banter between Mark Scott and the contestants is a million times better than Chris Berman incessantly screaming "BACK-BACK-BACK-BACK-BACK-BACK." Thanks for posting. I didn't know these were online.

I've rewatched a bunch of these, and there were a lot of stars on it, many of them more than once -- Duke Snider, Willie Mays, Harmon Killebrew. But there were a lot of interesting lesser lights, including Bob Cerv, Gus Triandos, and Ken Boyer.

It is fascinating how piddling the cash prizes seem to be. Even adjusted for inflation, the amounts of money being tossed around are ashtray money for your modern ballplayer.

I checked salary figures for the "lesser lights." When Cerv was on, the $500 would have been about 1 1/2% of his baseball earnings for the year ($32,500 in 1959.) Not too bad for an afternoon's work.

But in looking at Ken Boyer's salary figures I found this startling tidbit. In each of 1962, '63 and '64 he earned $70,000. In '64 he was the NL MVP, helped the Cards to the World Series win and received MVP votes for the 7th year in a row, and 8th time in his 10-year career.

Thanks for the link, I had never seen these. What park is this? Was surprised to see Aaron wearing batting gloves. They had a disadvantage of having the ball coming out of the sunny backdrop (in the 4th, Mathews fouled one back and followed with two popups). In current HR derby I don't remember anywhere near as many groundballs, they might have less of the "winner's curse" since they didn't adjust their swing as much.
Anyone know about the outfielders? I imagine it would have been fun to be a HS ballplayer getting to wear the flannels and trying to get a leaping catch against the ivy (since you would never play that deep in a HS game), and assuming it was tape delayed broadcast, get to watch it at home with friends.